What makes a Smart Watch?
You have all sorts of devices out there bearing the same moniker and all of various levels of "smartness". On one of the spectrum you have devices with limited integration with a smart watch which are basically regular watches but with notifications and then on the other end of the spectrum you have the Apple Watch which is basically an iPhone with a wrist sized screen.
There are advantages at both ends of the spectrum and definitely advantages of lying somewhere between. There are also cons at both ends and serious ones at that with technology as it is right now.
The basic ones tend to have the best battery life. They are more traditional watch than smart watch after all. And that is a huge plus with many of the digital devices struggling to last a full day. But, on the flip side the "smarts" are generally non-responsive (can't answer a call from wrist, etc...) and the batteries are generally disposables (the short life of more modern technology demands rechargeable batteries which is always a boon).
On the other extreme you have the Apple Watch. This thing has a Retina class display a full fledged processor, and class leading RAM and storage. This thing is as standalone as a smart watch gets, it is the most powerful and the most functional. But, on the flipside, the rumours peg it as impossible to get through a day if you actually plan to make use of all it offers regularly. Hell, it would probably be hard to get it through half a day.
My opinion of course is that the sweet spot at the moment is in between those extremes. A watch that relays notifications is a minor help, but not enough to justify it over having a wider selection in regular watches at wider price points. And while something with the functionality of the Apple Watch is indeed appealing, but the battery life kills its value for me.
For me, the ideal smart watch (which seems feasible on current tech) would be one with the following features:
- 1 week+ battery life with rechargeable battery (preferably wireless charging).
- low res, low colour digital display.
- smaller touch enabled portion OR extended array of physical buttons.
- notification enabled; Social, SMS, Text, Phone, Alarms, Calendar.
- ability to control media playback and volume
- ability to silence notifications
- call display information
For the most part these are actually all fairly basic functionality. I don't need to be able to speak to my watch, I feel dumb enough doing that to my phone when I'm not actually talking on it. I don't need a full touchscreen, watch faces aren't generally conducive to touch UI anyway. I don't care about games or attempting to respond to a text or email from a watch.
Getting notifications and events from a phone is good, especially if things like calendar and alarms can be synced to the watch. Responding to them is generally nonsensical on a watch... especially since the much more convenient phone needs to be in range of the Bluetooth receiver to send the notifications to the watch anyway. Getting information like call display and scrolling SMS text can save you pulling the phone out for unimportant matters. Beyond that, media controls are the biggest, one of the few things I can't stand about using a phone as an MP3 player is needing to either hold it perpetually or take it out of my pocket every time I need to change songs.
None of this needs hi-res screens, full color screens, touch capabilities or many of the idiotic things that make the battery life so poor that these devices end up being useless.
I don't mind having all of the bells and whistles either. But the more functionality you add to a device the more you have to anticipate it will be used so you can't afford to sacrifice battery life to get there. This is the fundamental flaw in the Apple Watch. They created a device which can do it all, but which can only make it through a day if you use it exclusively like a watch.
There are advantages at both ends of the spectrum and definitely advantages of lying somewhere between. There are also cons at both ends and serious ones at that with technology as it is right now.
The basic ones tend to have the best battery life. They are more traditional watch than smart watch after all. And that is a huge plus with many of the digital devices struggling to last a full day. But, on the flip side the "smarts" are generally non-responsive (can't answer a call from wrist, etc...) and the batteries are generally disposables (the short life of more modern technology demands rechargeable batteries which is always a boon).
On the other extreme you have the Apple Watch. This thing has a Retina class display a full fledged processor, and class leading RAM and storage. This thing is as standalone as a smart watch gets, it is the most powerful and the most functional. But, on the flipside, the rumours peg it as impossible to get through a day if you actually plan to make use of all it offers regularly. Hell, it would probably be hard to get it through half a day.
My opinion of course is that the sweet spot at the moment is in between those extremes. A watch that relays notifications is a minor help, but not enough to justify it over having a wider selection in regular watches at wider price points. And while something with the functionality of the Apple Watch is indeed appealing, but the battery life kills its value for me.
For me, the ideal smart watch (which seems feasible on current tech) would be one with the following features:
- 1 week+ battery life with rechargeable battery (preferably wireless charging).
- low res, low colour digital display.
- smaller touch enabled portion OR extended array of physical buttons.
- notification enabled; Social, SMS, Text, Phone, Alarms, Calendar.
- ability to control media playback and volume
- ability to silence notifications
- call display information
For the most part these are actually all fairly basic functionality. I don't need to be able to speak to my watch, I feel dumb enough doing that to my phone when I'm not actually talking on it. I don't need a full touchscreen, watch faces aren't generally conducive to touch UI anyway. I don't care about games or attempting to respond to a text or email from a watch.
Getting notifications and events from a phone is good, especially if things like calendar and alarms can be synced to the watch. Responding to them is generally nonsensical on a watch... especially since the much more convenient phone needs to be in range of the Bluetooth receiver to send the notifications to the watch anyway. Getting information like call display and scrolling SMS text can save you pulling the phone out for unimportant matters. Beyond that, media controls are the biggest, one of the few things I can't stand about using a phone as an MP3 player is needing to either hold it perpetually or take it out of my pocket every time I need to change songs.
None of this needs hi-res screens, full color screens, touch capabilities or many of the idiotic things that make the battery life so poor that these devices end up being useless.
I don't mind having all of the bells and whistles either. But the more functionality you add to a device the more you have to anticipate it will be used so you can't afford to sacrifice battery life to get there. This is the fundamental flaw in the Apple Watch. They created a device which can do it all, but which can only make it through a day if you use it exclusively like a watch.
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